fox on the run | miya osamu

mine

"CUTE? SHE CALLED ME CUTE? WHY CUTE?" the compliment Suiren thought of in a whim lingers in Osamu's mind even right now as they eat lunch. Obviously, Suiren is aware that Osamu's an enthusiast for good food so she took him in a fancy ramen restaurant.

"Osamu-san? Are you okay?" she asks, looking at his blank expression

"Huh? What?"

"You look troubled," she mumbles.

"Ah, no, it's nothing."

"Are you sure? Is the food okay? This is my favorite ramen spot," she asks, still worrying.

"This fancy place is your favorite spot? So you really are a daughter of some rich businessman or something."

"I just treat myself from time to time. I'm not rich, did the rumors also tell you that?"

"The rumors say a lot about you."

"Surprisingly, I could say the same thing about you, Osamu-san," she tells him in a more playful tone.

"Really? Like what?"

"That you've always rejected love confessions, that's one."

"Surprisingly," he mimics her, "They also say the same thing for you. What else?"

"And that you don't do girlfriends," she answers.

"Oh."

"Oh? Am I right, Osamu-san?"

"Maybe," he refuses to clarify.

"Maybe you just haven't found the right girl yet?" she suggests.

"Oh. Wait. If you do, then, then, you have to uh." She raises her hands for an air quote, "dump me."

"Hmm, there is something the rumors haven't told me yet." He slightly shifts the topic.

"What is it?"

"Your ideal type," he answers.

"I don't have one," she denies.

"Come on, you don't have to be shy, Suiren-san." She's reminded of the conversation she had with Miko, when she simply lied and answered it was that Miya Osamu.

"I like routines. I like consistency in what I do. So, maybe, a person who can understand, maybe that's my ideal," she answers. An image of someone pops up in his mind. Someone qualified in her ideal. And that someone is not him.

"But," she adds, preventing his mind from further overthinking it. "But what?" he asks, raising a brow.

"But Osamu-san, I do believe that you're the first boy I've felt comfortable with," she says with a smile, "Thank you for putting up with me."

"You make it sound like we're breaking up, Suiren-san," he chuckles, trying to lighten the mood for a bit.

"Since it's been brought it up, it really isn't all that impossible for you to find a real girlfriend," she reasons, giving emphasis on the 'real.'

"I'm not looking for one."

"But if you do, it's okay. We can stop the deal anytime," she says.

"Though it might hurt a little bit," she mumbles, thankfully too soft for him to hear amidst the noise and music.

After splitting the bill, Suiren noticeably gets a little more quiet than before, perhaps contemplating on what happens once he has an actual girlfriend. She doesn't like the thought of it. Her guilt also begins to build up as she realizes she's probably even preventing him from seeing someone else.

"I chose to be in this deal, okay?" he reassures her with the words she badly needed to hear. "So relax, Chuunchun," he adds while they walk pass the other stores.

She glances up at him with her cheeks getting flushed and she quickly averts her gaze somewhere else.

"Uh oh. Do you mind?" Osamu asks, his tone sounding much more serious. He spots an oddly familiar face and he soon recognizes that it's one of the boys chasing her when they first met. The first thing that comes to his mind is to fulfill the deal, which is, protecting her from stalkers like him.

As for Suiren though, she's left confused with the question so she just looks up at him again in silence. "I hope you don't mind, Chuunchun," he murmurs before swiftly intertwining his fingers with hers.

And that's when Suiren realizes that something as simple as the feel of Osamu's rough fingers, or just the light squeeze of his hand on hers, could make her heart skip a beat.

"Oh -Osamu-san?" she calls. His tight grip's preventing her from flinching away. Not that she wanted to let go of him in the first place.

"Yes, my Chuunchun?" he asks. She wonders why his voice got quite louder.